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shock and disbelief stage.
    I was lucky to have good friends and a pastor who cared. I was facing a future without Neil whether I liked it or not, and the kind of life I gave my children depended on how well I could handle that future.
    I thought I had it all figured out. Little did I know my worst days still lay ahead of me.

Chapter 5
    I left La Chic early Wednesday afternoon. On my station calendar, penciled in bold red and circled, was my annual physical appointment. This year I’d have blown it off, only I was in my responsible mode now; I was obligated to take care of myself. Plus, my right ear had been giving me fits on takeoffs and landings. Sometimes the pressure was so bad I was doubled over.
    For me, seeing a doctor was like pulling teeth. I had a white-coat phobia—my blood pressure, heart rate and anxiety level all shot through the roof when a doctor or nurse approached. Dad had feared doctors and he’d passed the phobia along to me. Same with storms—every time a dark cloud came on the horizon he’d pace the floor and warn Mother that they’d better get me to shelter. I’d spent half my youth crouching in a dank cellar, praying the storm wouldn’t touch us. I knew God promised safe passage to those who loved Him, and in those years I wasn’t aware of any gales other than nature’s fury. I’dtaken God’s promise literally. Safe passage to me meant safe passage—it didn’t have any hidden meanings like “You might not make it through the storm, but you’re promised ‘safe passage’ into heaven.” I was starting to see that life’s fury was every bit as lethal as Mother Nature’s temperamental displays.
    A little before five, a nurse showed me to a small cubicle lab, comically labeled the Vampire’s Den. The sign served its purpose and I smiled in spite of my apprehension. Three vials later, I was handed a brown bottle and pointed to the bathroom down the long hallway.
    Later I settled on a hard examining table covered in white paper and waited, my eyes roaming the built-in desk with boxes of rubber gloves, lubricant, ear swabs and wooden tongue depressors. Some sort of tool lay in plain sight. Torturous, no doubt.
    An hour later, or at least it seemed that long, the doctor breezed in, reading my chart. “Kate. How are you coping?”
    “Hi, Dr. Bates.” I hadn’t been in his office since last year’s physical, but he’d been kind enough to make a house call and prescribe medication when Neil died.
    He paused, peering at me over the rims of his glasses. “How are you doing, girl?”
    Tears smarted in my eyes. When anyone got that tone of voice—the I’m-so-sorry-about-Neil tone—I still lost it. I knew people meant well, but they couldn’t help, so the tone was always there, plunging me back to my black pit.
    “Not so good, Dr. Bates, but friends say it will take time.”
    He patted my shoulder and lifted the foot extension, snapping it into place. “I lost my wife a couple years ago.”
    “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, my mind now on what the nurse was doing. This whole process gave me the jitters.
    He paused, squeezing my hand with calm reassurance. Dr. Harry Bates had given me my first high school physical, so I should feel comfortable in his presence, but I was jumpy as a pea on a drum.
    “People lie,” he said. “You never get over losing half of you, Kate. Not entirely, but you manage to go on.”
    I closed my eyes. “What if I don’t want to go on?”
    “Well.” He went about his business and I tried to think of my “happy place.” Sunning on the beach, with plovers and turnstones soaring overhead, rolling surf—ouch!
    The mystery tool.
    “Trust me,” the doctor said. “Given time, the pain will ease and some morning you’ll wake up and decide life’s a pretty good deal after all.”
    “If you say so,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I’m still in the tearful stage—but making progress.”
    Later I sat in his plush leather office chair and waited for results.